Without You
by TheOtterKnight
Summary: Even after death, Thomas still manages to find a way to fail his friend. (Post-canon.)
**Universe:** Bookverse. Post-canon (The Death Cure). Could be read if you know about page 250.

 **AU:** Brenda hadn't burned down the Trans Unit at the end of TDC.

 **Warning(s):** Major character death.

 **Pairing(s):** Newt/Thomas.

 **Word Count:** 3,523

 **Disclaimer:** Roses are red, violets are blue, I don't own, don't bother to sue. This is (slightly) slash but don't bash.

* * *

Denver is in ruins, even more so since the last time that they had visited. Thomas could feel the dust and grit grind into his lungs with each inhale, could feel his throat catch and constrict on the tendrils of pain that came with the rough air. He blamed it on the very air he breathed and not the guilt that was a heavy weight in his gut, weighing down his steps as he took them precariously from the van. He could feel it with the way his chest rose and fell, with the wind that touched his face - that he was alive and human and above all else, immune. Because that was all that mattered - being immune. There were some cranks dodging along the shadows from his peripheral view, ducking out of sight.

There is no fear. There is no halt in his step, no sobbing that erupts from his lips. Thomas knows that he has to do this. He can hear Gally leap from the van beside him, and he knows that Minho and Brenda were in another across the city. Thomas wasn't proud of this, but he pulled strings, threw tables, and was threatened once - all to make sure they didn't come down _this_ street.

He could feel Gally's eyes on him, watching him as he took steps away from the van. Some bodies were gathered in bags already. A burial was denied; a mass grave was voted in, because of the many nameless faces - the nameless people of whose lives had been snuffed out. There was no other place for them to go. But they all had to be taken and delivered, out of the city, away from Paradise and every other place of humanity. To make the capitals inhabitable again, if they could. Maybe a cure - if they even had one - could be distributed on everyone else, make them well again. If such a thing existed.

"Thomas."

 _Tommy._

He closes his eyes on the sound, of the ghost that still edges on the corners of his vision. He can almost feel his presence, could feel that reassuring smile more than see it, in the further recesses of his mind. He takes a gasp of air between his teeth and turns around, looking at the dark-haired Glader behind him. Gally looked a little worried, a massive twist of the scars on his face. "Can you do this?" His eyes slide over Thomas' shoulder, looking past the brunette.

"Of course I can," he responds.

 _Don't you do it, Tommy! Don't you bloody do it!_

"You don't look okay," Gally offers, quietly, and Thomas shrugs the question away. The other boy doesn't pry; he doesn't need to. He knows the answer.

"Let's just get these bodies out of here," he says because it's easier to think of them as things rather than actual people with lives who were ruined by the Flare. People whose very lives were cut short because of the disease. It isn't even exactly messy, carrying the bodies into the bags and zipping them up. Only a few of them smelled bad, the others were tolerable. A nameless fellow picked up the people opposite from Thomas and they set the bodies down, another immune man writing things down.

 _Pretty sure we arrived in bloody hell. Always thought that you'd end up here, Minho, but not me._

"What are you doing?" the words come out harsher on his lips than he intended. One of the workers with them were placing the familiar mask over their faces, letting the dart inject into their necks, knowing that lights were flashing into unseeing eyes, and their status reading out on the panel. It was the device to see if they were infected, he remembered it from the restaurant they ate in and the time they entered the city.

"It's for statistics," the man offers up as a response, tugging on the corner of his polo shirt and looking down. "They've all got wounds, but it'd be nice to know if they would have died without our help." He places it over the next person, and with a soft puff of air, the jagged words of **D** read up at him along with a mass amount of numbers and dashes. "Besides, some people never checked. A mass portion of the population freaked when the Flare was said to have gotten out - they didn't want to know of their inevitable fate. So some people might have been immune. WICKED had a way of knowing if you were immune, though."

 _I'm not worried about the bloody Flare, man. I never thought I'd still be alive at this buggin' point - and living hasn't exactly been so great anyway._

"Right," he says, watching Polo Shirt check the body before drawing identification. "What-?"

"Checking for ID," Polo Shirt said. "If they have ID, then they get a proper grave in the city that they're from. If not, then they'll be put into a mass grave. See?" He flashes up a card up at Thomas. **Robin Clint | Denver** and other pieces of information was displayed on the card, other meaningless information to Thomas. "Didn't they debrief you on this, kid?"

"I was more concerned on ... on getting this street to work on," he responds with, voice quieter.

 _I hated the place, Tommy. And it was all you t._

Polo Shirt frowns. "Robb, we got a guy from Denver over here." He looks back at Thomas, scratching at the beard that he was growing and frowning in concern. "There a reason for that? On picking this street? Not many want to pick a certain street."

 _Yeah -_

"No."

 _\- I especially loved the bit where you offered to sacrifice yourself._

Polo Shirt nods, his features relaxing. "Alright, kid." Thomas finds that it's easier to breathe when the man isn't scrutinizing him, isn't watching him with leering eyes. He feels Gally's eyes on him, feels his presence move a bit closer but he does not offer comfort. He wonders if the other boy knows - if he can read it in the way he walks, in how he talks, in the way he holds himself. Shoulders low and eyes wide open, hand reaching out for a person who was no longer there. Perhaps in the very way that he breathed air, maybe, the way his own breath caught sometimes when he saw something that reminded him of Newt. He wonders if Gally knows and if that was why he chose to be with Thomas today.

"Just continue bagging the bodies, they at least deserve that," Polo Shirt said, "and call us if they have ID or if you recognize one of them." Thomas nods, quickly. He hears Gally mutter an affirmative. They go back to the bodies they've piled together, searching their pockets before beginning to place them in bags, zipping them up.

Hours pass with mindless work, and gradually, they make their way down the street. His heart catches in his throat, and his veins feels as though he's on fire. He has an itch in his brain the closer they get. When they stop to have a break, he knows. He knows exactly where they are.

He tries not to remember, to recall the stiff weight of the gun in his hand, Newt's hands on his throat, pleas and spittle coming from his throat. The note in his pocket was a death certificate dedicated to both of them that day.

There's a couple bags lined up along the other side of the street, unzipped and parted to be checked, already bagged by a previous bagging party who likely didn't have an identifier. He does not feel the pavement beneath his shoes, he is only aware of the startling cold as he moves away from Gally's questioning mutterings and the confused stares of the other people from Paradise.

He has to check the bags. He absolutely has to. Each face he stares down, unrecognizing most of them. Until he stops and stills.

He stares down, his chest seizing painfully and no breath scraping into his lungs. It feels like his world went off kilter, staring down at the pale face. He had clung to the hope that when he had closed his eyes and pulled the trigger, he had missed. That he was a poor shot and instead hit his shoulder, that Newt was nothing but dazed - and alive - but the proof was laid out before him in how still his best friend had become.

 _What you did was half brave and half bloody stupid. Seems like you're pretty good at that._

"No." There was a bloody mess of where his forehead was, congealed blood running into one of his eyes, both of them staring up unseeingly. The once honey gaze was dulled, and he might never have looked away in Gally didn't press his fingers into his arm. His throat burned when he looked elsewhere, back to the wound and - oh, oh no. He tries not to think of the body as Newt, tries not to think about how his friend had died at his hands. Newt hadn't died swiftly, he realized, with bile rising in his throat. His skull was compacted a bit, and a glint of silver shone through, bright against the deceased flesh of his friend. It hadn't embedded itself all the way through, even though they were awfully close at the time. A freak accident that ensured that Newt died slowly, with eventual blood in the brain being the cause of death.

He had failed his friend. Newt had wanted to die, but probably not like that - never like that. Thomas keels over, hurling. His throat burns and his stomach constricts, spittle and vomit barely making it past his lips as he tries not to look at the mistake he had made. He had killed his friend in a slow, painful way. His insides burn, and it feels like he had lodged a bullet inside his chest. He throws up until he aches from the inside out until he's dry heaving and panting in heavy breaths. Gally has said nothing during this whole ordeal, just stood silently by.

"I'm sorry," the boy says.

"Not as much as I am," he hears himself say, eyes burning.

 _You know what's funny, Tommy? I actually believe you. You just don't have an ounce of lying in those eyes of yours._

He wipes his mouth, but it does nothing to help the feeling of being dirty - of the blood on his hands, of the tears on his cheeks and the bitter taste of horror and regret in his mouth. Newt's death had been a blanket over his world, an eclipse that never went away. He saw the world with fog-tinted glasses, and he always felt so, so very cold without his friend by his side. "He didn't deserve this," he chokes out, tears stinging his eyes and the feeling of nausea overcame him again, but all that came up was spit and tears.

"No, he didn't," Gally offers, kneeling beside Newt's body. They're a blur, and the more he scrubs at his eyes, the faster the tears flow. "Did he want this?"

"Yes. He wrote me a note, I swear," his hands are shaking, fingers clawing at his own skin in an attempt to find his pocket, digging and searching but finding it hard to reach the note. It's with stumbling hands that he passes it over, gives it to Gally to read. The older boy doesn't say anything, only look at it in concerned glances. It's torn and frayed, ink smearing and wearing down already but it's the only solid thing of Newt's that he has, even though it is nothing but a grim reminder.

"Oh," Gally says, as if Thomas had given him a free meal slip and Gally was feeling particularly stuffed. Like he was indifferent and didn't care. "Kind of like Teresa with that note then, huh?"

Except Teresa was providing hope and Newt destroyed it.

"Something like that."

He's about to turn, to look awake so he doesn't throw up his insides again when he catches sight of it. It's hard to see, especially with the sheet of plastic being so close. But with the mention of Teresa.. he reaches forward, pressing his fingers to Newt's hand, feeling the stiffened joints. It's a bit of a struggle, but he manages to slip out a piece of paper. Newt had had a note in his hand.

he unfolds it, carefully.

 **Thomas, you failed the test.**

He looks over at the other note, heartbeat becoming a distant thunder in his ears. **Kill me. If you've ever been my friend, kill me.** _The handwriting was the exact same._ He thinks back, back to that first note - **She is the last one. Ever. -** and he decidedly can't breath. They were written by the same, neat, hand. It couldn't have been Newt, it simply couldn't have been. Newt couldn't have been coherent enough to write it, and he seriously doubted that his friend had sided with WICKED with the test. But.. _Newt hadn't written the note._ His hands find purchase in his skin, terror and horror and regret flooding through him like a wave, and he's drowning. Had Newt even wanted to die?

"Everything okay over here?" He hears a man ask, and through his panic he can see an elderly man with a thick and full beard walk over, a mask dangling at his side and a clipboard with stacks of papers attached.

"He was my friend," he finds himself saying, panic making it hard for him to breathe. "He didn't - he didn't want to become a monster. To become a Crank." He knows his voice is rising, knows that soon enough he won't be able to stand upright, not with this feeling running through him. He knows that if WICKED were still around, he would tear them apart with his bare hands. His friend's life wasn't worth one of their shuck tests. "He was my friend. He didn't deserve it. _He was my friend."_ Did Newt's death correspond to their Variables? Did they use his death to map Thomas' reaction? Had Newt died because he was best friends with Thomas?

"Alright, I need his information, if he doesn't have ID," Grey Beard said.

"Newt, male, seventeen years old. Associate with WICKED." Gally is the one who answers, "5'11. 118 lbs, I think." He lists other information and Grey Beard nods and writes it down. Thomas finds his tongue like lead. He cannot bring himself to deny this is happening; that Gally is stating facts like Newt wasn't just right there, on the ground. He's talking about Newt like he's talking about the weather. It's making Thomas sick.

"You don't have to do that," he croaks out, finding his voice. Grey Beard looks like to Thomas, sticking his pen in the corner of his mouth and his bushy caterpillar eyebrows raise. He's unlatched the virus verification machine from his waist, where it had dangled from straps before. "He wasn't ..." he locks his lips as if it would help. "You don't have to do that."

Grey Beard sighs, listening to Thomas repeat himself like a broken record. "Wouldn't it help you to know how far along he was with the Flare?" He asks, chewing on the corner of his pen before he adjusts the mask beneath his arm and shoves the pen into his pocket. "You can say your goodbyes, and I could even send him back with you if you want."

 _Say your bloody goodbyes and remember me from the good old days._

Thomas closes his eyes, clenching the paper tightly in his hand. "Okay, okay," he says, even though he's not prepared for this. He isn't ready to see the fatal words on the screen. Thomas can hear the man adjust the straps, can hear the sharp puff of air. He doesn't know how it even works, with dead blood cells. He opens his eyes. "How far..." His words stop abruptly.

 **E.**

"No," he chokes out. "Check it again." Grey Beard looks up at him with wide eyes almost as blue as the pen smeared along the corner of his lips. It's a dash of color other than blood that he wants to focus on. "Check it again!"

 **E.**

"G-give me that," his breath comes out in shuddering gasps, between chattering teeth. "You're not .. you're doing something wrong. Th-that's not right." _Newt isn't immune, he's not. He's not. WICKED said so. They wouldn't..._ **E. E. E.** The words did not falter, did not change. Newt was immune. He was immune all along.

Thomas feels the mask skip from his grip, dropping to the pavement somewhere from his sight. He can't see, not with the tears running like rivets down his cheeks. "Oh my god," he gasps out, fingers grappling, tearing apart the body bag to press his fingers to Newt's neck.

He feels slimy to the touch, cold and stiff as he brings the blond slightly upwards. "He can't be," he says, not knowing if he could be understood with his voice growing thick and choking with emotion. "He can't be immune." Panic and hysteria rises high in his voice, fingers finding purchase in the blond's neck, searching for a pulse. "Your machine is wrecked. WICKED told us.. they told us.." he loses his voice. At this moment, he was willing to believe anything but the truth. Even WICKED'S beautiful lies told through glass teeth was better than the cold truth.

"Oh god, not Newt," He's aware he's sobbing out, voice scratchy and near indecipherable. "Not him. Baby, no, please." He hunches over, shoulders shaking and a low keening sound ripping from his throat. Newt's head tips backwards, lifeless, his throat pale and narrow, a familiar place for Thomas as he presses himself there, as if hoping for their bodies to collapse into each other. "Not him. Never him. I love him."

Thomas rocks himself back and forth, dried blood flaking off and shedding onto his clothes. He does not remove himself from Newt, and they do not pry him from the dead boy.

He knew that it said a lot about him, about him clinging to the boy he loved and shot.

Had WICKED caught on to that? Had they noticed his wandering eyes, his lingering touches, his worried words, when it came in relation to Newt? Had they pieced it all together, and figured a devastated lovesick boy was better than a rebellious boy fighting to get back to the boy he loved? Had they figured that he'd be more compliant to their brain operation if the reason for his hope was destroyed? It obviously hadn't worked, because Thomas was still here - but without a cure. But was he really here if the reason he was alive was murdered by his hand?

He wants to feel angry, with himself for crippling the boy and dragging him to his doom by bringing him to the Glade. He wants to tear WICKED apart again, feel Janson's throat in his hands. They had lied to him, time and time again. At himself for damaging the other Gladers with the Maze Trials. At himself for nor making Newt stay that day. Always, he will be angry that he pulled the trigger.

 **Thomas, you failed the test.**

His eyes shoot open. It was a test. Newt begging for his life was a test. He couldn't even begin to comprehend why they'd do that, what they hoped to accomplish.

"Thomas," he hears Gally say, voice distant and at the end of a tunnel. He can barely hear him. "Thomas, can you focus on me?"

"He didn't have to die," he gasps out, shuddering and trying to breathe. Gally is on him in an instant, prying his fingers from Newt and setting the blond down, carefully before pulling Thomas up and away. He wants to be mad at Gally, for siding with WICKED for so long, but Thomas is so exhausted and tired and sick of everything. "He didn't have to die. I could have turned away."

 _What were you doing! How could you be so bloody stupid!_

"You could have," Gally confirms, pulling Thomas to his chest and trying to pull him away from the can still see the blond's unseeing eyes - could see his destroyed body, defiled by his hands and his bullet, but even then, he could still see Newt's reassuring smile, as if the world was okay again.

It wasn't. Everything had fallen apart. His world would never be okay.

"I love him." _And I never told him._

"I know."

Thomas closes his eyes and thinks of a world of him on the other side of the trigger and where he hadn't failed his friend.

 _I'm really glad that you're alive, Tommy. Really_

 _y_

 _g_ _l a d._


End file.
